Thursday, June 09, 2016

In praise of the Trump voter

Via Glenn Reynolds on Facebook, a piece by Dan Dragan, "Who is Donald Trump's base? Why is he popular? Why are people voting for him? Why do people like and support him?"

Dragan follows the path of Byron York, Mark Steyn, and sadly very few other commentators in getting out of his office and finding out whom these Trumpkins are.
I give York and Steyn space and praise in my upcoming book, "Trump the Press," as I describe in my way the Trumpkins the rest of the crowd missed. They were among the few pundits who practiced journalism. CNN also did an act of journalism in having reporters actually talk to Trumpkins. Imagine that.

Dragan's piece is very good, but the bottom line is its bottom line -- that is the final paragraph.From Dragan:

Side note: As an immigrant to this country, I have always been amazed at the lack of understanding and cross-pollination that exists between small and big-town America. Few of my urban American-born IT coworkers have ever traveled the country by car as I do, on smaller roads through small towns and farms. The stories and photos I bring back makes them wonder as if they are from some forgotten Asian jungle -- and perhaps reinforce their reasoning and resolve never to visit such backward places. But the people who live there are mostly honest folk -- simply Americans. And, coming from another culture coming apart under the assault of globalization, it breaks my heart to speak to them and listen to their stories. I am of course, generalizing, but many really feel left behind: it seems in a multicultural America, bent on integrating the latest fashionable minority, and catering through main media channels, fashion, movies, art and politics to larger urban centers and their dwellers -- there is little place left for the God-abiding, law-respecting, family-loving, hard-working individual that used to be called the common man and it's now called a bigot, gun-toting, racist, homophobic troglodyte. Who speaks for these guys among today's presidential candidates? You have one guess.

Someday I shall write a piece in praise of the blue collar white man who bore the brunt of the long-overdue societal changes that brought equality to women and minorities. White liberal males in Congress kept their jobs. The punditry also suffered not at all.

It may just have been a TV sitcom, but no other character changed more, showed more compassion, and was more responsible than Archie Bunker on "All in the Family," and yet he was the one they called a racist, xenophobic misogynist. Yet he was the one who overcame his prejudices. He came to symbolize a remarkable generation that dug its way out of a depression, won World War II, kept the communists at bay, and built the greatest land of all. What was his thanks?

Ingratitude.

Mike Stivic never changed. He was a meathead. Truly. Stivic mouthed Bunker as he mooched off him, then he took Gloria to California, fathered a few children, and abandoned his family so he could join a commune. Seriously. That was how the series evolved. I think he is now a senator from Vermont.

On the show, a typical plot had some liberal come into Mister Bunker's house, sit in his chair, and lecture him on charity and tolerance. Yet of all the characters on the show, Archie Bunker proved to be the most tolerant, most charitable, and most loving. He never ducked his responsibilities. He worked two jobs one time, putting his life in danger driving a cab. He was a god provider. I was 62 when I finally figured out what mother meant by that.

After working two jobs, Archie came home and Meathead lectured him on that week's topic for which Meathead had studied. Why not? He had no job. He had all the time in the world to put together a killer argument with selected facts.

And so it goes today.

After a while, you can only push a people so far before they say enough. The people who pay for globalization, free trade, and open borders live in places like Poca, West Virginia, and not that Versailles we call Washington DC.

Dragan is not free from his prejudices:

The left-behind America is angry, and it is this anger that Donald Trump is channeling. He tells this audience exactly what they need to hear, in terms that they understand. He will bring back the jobs from China, he will bomb radical Islam to the stone age, he will eject all illegal immigrants and will make America -- that America, the small-town America -- great again.

He is, to be sure, a demagogue and a populist, and it is possible that many fail to recognize him as such.

Well, Obama is another demagogue and populist. He gets a pass because he is a liberal.

But at least Dragan tries to understand what is going on.

Coming soon -- "Trump the Press: Don Surber's take on how the pundits blew the 2016 Republican race."

15 comments:

You're on fire, Big D. NBA Jam reference. GREAT post. Who are the people I know who are in for DJT? A contractor, a plumber, a hairdresser, and an Ohio state trooper, to name a few. Working America. I actually hope the Soros-funded protests continue. Just strengthens our resolve.

This AM on Fox I heard Kasich being interviewed. He still does not want to support Trump - he said to him this is NOT a game. And then he gave as one reason for his stance, that Trump is trending downward on Twitter!

The rich and powerful elites and politicians of the GOP are not going to give up just because more people than ever before have voted for Trump - that's just the "little people" expressing their will, which means nothing to them (they are not much different than the Democrat elites). They are not going to let go of their power without a fight. They are not fighting for the good of America, not fighting for the working class, not fighting to restore the rule of law and our Constitution - they fight only to keep their gravy train rolling.

People forget that Pericles was a demagogue, too. Only a very successful one (at least until the Lacedaemonian siege and plague). Simply being good at influencing people does not immediately imply Caesarism.

I'm tired of being labeled a racist for opposing Obama's policies, called a misogynist for not supporting HRC because of her genitalia, called a xenophobe for wanting a secure border, called a bigot for recognizing the religious base for marriage between a man and a woman and feeling that life begins at conception. I'm tired of giving the government more than 30 percent of my hard-earned wages and losing ever more of my take-home pay to astronomical health insurance premiums with exorbitant deductibles. Meanwhile, China eats our lunch and our military is bare-boned while it tries to defend the world from tyrants. Thank God Trump hears me. No one else does.

We are only a few days past the anniversary of D-Day. It was on that day, June 6, 72 years ago, that those "simply Americans" from small towns all across America showed extraordinary courage in the face of death to save Europe, to save America, to save the entire world from utter evil. It is a mistake for anyone to look down their noses at those "ordinary people." From those common folk, many heroes were born...on June 6, 1944, in no way were they merely "ordinary."

Nations commit suicide these days at the ballot box, witness Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and soon, South Africa. Make no mistake, H. Clinton will win this thing thereby solidifying international appeasement in the military and economics together with crony socialism. She will be confiscating firearms and raising the cost of energy. Everything bad you fear will happen after the election. Republicans in Congress will get the message and do nothing, except to ontinue taking bribes to remain in office.

Dragan quotes: "The education that small-town America gets is sub-par compared with the rest of the country, let alone the world and that further limits such prospects as may come." I'm guessing there are a lot of big-city schools not doing as well, due to their diversity of students and teachers and administrators.He seems to be getting on toward understanding America.

This guy gets a lot of things wrong. I used to shop at Walmart and other box stores in a city 60 miles away. Then Walmart opened a store in a smaller town about 45 miles away. The new store is much friendlier and has a better clientele. I go there now, and while I'm in the area, I get my hair cut, have lunch, buy pet food, and get hardware in other nearby businesses. The notion that a Walmart destroys local business is not necessarily true.

This guy gets a lot of things wrong. I used to shop at Walmart and other box stores in a city 60 miles away. Then Walmart opened a store in a smaller town about 45 miles away. The new store is much friendlier and has a better clientele. I go there now, and while I'm in the area, I get my hair cut, have lunch, buy pet food, and get hardware in other nearby businesses. The notion that a Walmart destroys local business is not necessarily true.

About Me

I live in Poca, West Virginia, with my lovely wife of 40 years, Lou Ann. I am an Army veteran and Cleveland State graduate. I retired after 40 years as a newspaperman. In 2016, I published "Trump the Press," which drew rave reviews at Power Line and Instapundit.